Free Honest Reviews (Closed)

I'd put up a price but I doubt my word is that valuable maybe try someone else.

Chapter 1:

There are quite some surprises here. For one, I was not expecting to actually get somewhat scared in the middle of the chapter so good job on making me feel that, but I was also uncomfortable at those two talking about their sex and stuff such a messy chapter, but not necessarily in the story sense. I think the beginning is actually great, but in my opinion, the chapter might just be a little long for a tapas chapter. Tapas highly encourages shorter chapters because of their scrolling format, but if you prefer keeping it longer, that it's fine. The thing is, it didn't feel THAT long, but at the very least, I would cut the first part about the girl Valerie out of the chapter and make it into a prologue or something since that didn't add much to the chapter (though I assume is much more important later). Not much I can say about the actual writing other than the fact that I found you repeating the word "particularly" twice in one paragraph (careful with that!). Overall, good job!

Chapter 2

I praised the last chapter for it's contents, so let me take those points back okay, it's not that bad but I gotta admit that their dialogue was even more awkward to read than last time. Though that is not the main issue I have. My issue is repetition. You describe Jon to us in the first paragraph, about who his parents were and whatnot, which was already a red flag for me, but then you have him repeat it as they talk about their parents and how he is half Japanese. Pretty unnecessary. If I were you, I would only keep the dialogue bit. Also, the description of the main character as being a chick magnet (my phrasing) isn't necessary either. I think that her talking about his appearance, but also, him mentioning that this wasn't his first time waking up next to a girl like that is more than enough for this message. What I'm trying to say is Show don't Tell! Other than that, good chapter ^^ I actually have no issues with the writing overall but more so the information getting.

Chapter 3

I much prefer this length of chapter! ^^ It was much faster to get through. Now here's the deal that I am somewhat getting from your character for the time being, and it pains me to say this, but he seems like a Gary Stu. I mean, it's highly likely that as the story goes on he won't seem as "perfect" and dealing with every issue so flawlessly, but yeah, that just kind of gets to my head as I read this chapter (and it crossed my mind before but I didn't have enough proof for it yet). Another thing that kind of caught my attention was the dialogue. I feel like his little "hero speech" about where he comes from or not is a bit long. Not monolgue type of long, but just long enough for it to seem unnatural for the scene. Like why would the drunk guy just let him ramble for so long before telling him to fuck off? The very last thing that I noticed was the use of "reminded" in the beginning of the chapter regarding his flashback. Reminded gives the connotation that something reminded him of his past but as far as I see from the info in the story, there was nothing necessarily remininding him of it, he was just remembering it. That one I admit is a BIG nitpick but yeah, that just crossed my mind. (additionally, don't feel bad that I am nitpicking because that means the writing is overall good enough for me to even mention these/if the writing isn't as great, I don't bother going for little bits like those)

Oh and one more thing that just crossed my mind... What part of Japan is this exactly? Because first there is Jon who is only half Japanese, that other girl who had American routes, and now there is a girl with blond hair. Call me crazy, but having had lived in Japan for a while, I have to say, it ain't that easy to find foreigners if possible, try to ground the story more so that it feels more like Japan.

Chapter 4

Ookay~ well I can't deny that I still have that Gary Stu feeling from Jon but I'm glad that this wasn't just a scene for him to gat laid (I was praying to the atheistic God that it don't happen ) and I'm glad it didn't. Overall, we have some lore here in this chapter which is pretty interesting. The one itsy tiny nitpick I have is once again for the dialogue at the end. The girl was begging for her life and she would do anything if he let her live. He kills her, and then tells his demand (first of all, who is he talking to?) second, he killed her so the exchange doesn't even work I assume that was supposed to be a cool moment, but to me it just sounded like he is dumb. Idk, I think there could be cooler ways to make that come across.

Chapter 5:

I've been trying not to mention this, but I have to ask: have you read/watched Bleach? Cuz a lot of the things I am reading is highly reminding me of it. Not word for word but just the themes. The main character is a student who comes off as a Gary Stu. He's super overpowered and a chick magnet. He's part of a secret society who take care of monsters in the night. He has super annoying friends where in he looks much cooler compared to them. And he even has a feature (his heritage) that makes him stand out among the japanese people. Not much else I can say about this chapter other than me noticing these similarities. Now if this is intentional, then thats fine, also if you have never watched/read bleach and it's just a coincidence, that is fine too. But if by chance you are a fan and you would rather it not be so noticeable, then here's me just letting you know that I noticed.

Chapter 6

Can. We. Get. A. Female. Character. Who. Is. Not. Described. By. How. Beautiful. She. Is!!! Sorry, but had to get that out of my way it's just a little annoying that all the girls are these perfect looking angels. It's sort of cliche, but hey! If that's the story you want then go for it 🤣 I just ain't a fan of that stuff. The story is moving and once again, I can't say much against the writing itself but I can't deny that the dialogue in this chapter was boring. I just wasn't interested in the occult stuff but I will assume it is important so I shall keep it in mind.

Chapter 7

The feminist in me did not enjoy this chapter that is all I will say. And Jon should stop acting like a girl catcher cuz he knows nothing about girls

Chapter 8/ chapter 9

Yes! Finally this Jon bastard gets told off finally!!! 🥳 I enjoyed this exchange much more than you think. Now I can finally FEEL something for him.

Chapter 10

Sigh...i was hoping that last chapter feeling of sorry for Jon would last but alas, as soon as I read that the next chapter is from Miya's perspective I knew that a monster would follow her and he would save her...

The story overall... I can't deny that it was pretty predictable and honestly not as interesting as I had hoped. I liked the beginning, but slowly it changed into something I didn't like as much. Sorry if this comes off as mean but honesty was what I promised with this post. Once I realized how much it reminded me of bleach, I just kept connecting more and more dots. Miya is a character I particularly dislike, as her character so far only comes down to her being sexy, in love with Jon, and needing to be saved. Jon once said that she was "interesting" but never explained why neither did I see any of that interesting bit from her character. I could praise you for the vampire reveal which was by far my favorite scene, but that was also the one that almost entirely solidified my view of this being so similar to bleach. Additionally, Jon's best friends are annoying, and all of the girls are categorized by how pretty /older younger from other girls they look. The story isn't to my liking, but your writing is good! I can't really think of anything I could tell you to improve other than very small nitpicks. But the story just wasn't my taste. Those are my thoughts. I don't think I can help you improve much as your writing is already at a level where I can't be of much help, so all I can do is give my opinion on the story. That was mine wish you luck in your writing!

Starting your first chapter, I have some mixed signals... While I liked and quite enjoyed the beginning, there were some moments by the end that made me a little iffy about the writing. First, the positive. I like that we start with action. Not much is explained, we're straight into the story and I believe that that is the best way to start a story. A small tiny bit more context could have been added and it wouldn't be too overwhelming, but as it is, as long as things are later explained (why are they after this guy. Who are they? Who is Roger?) then it should be fine. However, as I said, there were some mixed signals for me. One was the tone of the speech and sometimes even narration. You would capitalize all letters in a word for a reason I couldn't really fathom and it didn't help emphasize the tone of the delivery as it just seemed to me like they were saying a sentence normally but just decided to scream one word out. The second iffy moment was at the end of the chapter mainly but I think there might have been other minor instances of this. You would say (not phrasing exactly) "Roger thought about it logically and knew they wouldn't kill him" but then you would take a complete 180 in the next paragraph and say that he was too panicked to think of that. This is especially weird as your writing doesn't come off as omniscient. Now in the off-chance that this is an omniscient narration, technically this could be fine if only sharpened a little, because the omniscient narrator can say what he wants even if it's not actually happening (like giving facts that the reader wouldn't otherwise know), but the wording of the narration throughout the entire chapter made me feel like I was reading third person subjective. Idk, it was just weird at parts but overall, not a bad start.

Chapter 2.
Rip Roger. We shall never know that name.

As for this chapter though... Uhm... I have to say that it inherently suffered the "too many characters in one scene" issue I honestly could not even name them all off... It doesn't help that they had names like Wrath, Sloth, Envy,... It is clear to me now that you are using the omniscient narrator, and technically, you are doing it right by giving us every perspective that is important but the thing that is missing is context. In the last chapter, I praised you for this, but that was a scene between three characters. It wasn't too hard to really just imagine in my head "okay, this is happening now." but when you suddenly include so many more characters without an introduction, it kind of seizes to make as much sense as you would want it to and I very quickly lose focus of what is even happening. It's a shame as the writing and descriptions are pretty good actually, but I just can't seem to gather up all the information I am given... But maybe this is a one time issue I will suppose. It is an action-packed chapter and perhaps you meant for it to be a moment that is better off on a second read.

Chapter 3

Ehm...who is Ira? The chapter was about Wrath, then suddenly we get a different name... I assumed it was her real name or something and the sudden change simply needed a bit more explanation, but the second half of the chapter felt like a whole different scene.... Yes, I can tell (or I think) that she was remembering something from the past but one would assume that memory would be more relevant than just waking up? Idk, I can't deny my confusion honestly... I guess I'll just read on but I have to say that the stop in this chapter is pretty confusing.

Chapter 4

I will be the first to admit that I have an issue with naming my characters in almost every paragraph. I do this to make sure that it is obvious who the paragraph belongs to (as I write in omniscient too) but the problem is that I am very insecure in getting my message across so I mention their names multiple times in a paragraph, if it is no longer obvious who I am talking about. Why am I saying this? Well, one to show that it is not necessary to say the character's name in every paragraph, but also to point to the fact that you didn't name the character we are following in this chapter even once... I mean, I can assume that it is Wrath/Ira, but yeah, because of the chapter break, it could have very well just been a whole new scene with different characters. The tone of the story has also shifted significantly, is going from someone murdering a man with a club, to go to a coffee shop where two people are innocently flirting. This shift is not bad per say, but so far, I'm in dire need of knowing what the story is about. It could very well be that I will learn something about this in the next chapter, but generally speaking, the sooner you give your readers a goal to reach, the better. I personally also had an issue where I only really revealed the goal in like chapter 30, but to compensate for that, I gave a fake goal at the beginning and then shifted the attention from that to make way for the actual story. Just giving that as an example, but yeah, so far the story is just aimless. The actual writing is perfectly fine and the scenes are reasonably understandable, but putting them all together, it kind of leaves more questions than it probably should.

Chapter 5

Ahh, Ira finally gets named good. Anyways, I actually kind of ship these, not gonna lie. They're cute and I like their dynamic. The line by the girl "no rival to kill" was a little uncomfortable, but I don't think that was meant to be anything but uncomfortable. Poor boy probably doesn't know what he's getting into. The whole question game is a bit of a cliche but not one I dislike. So yeah, good chapter here it's just that as I remember the first two chapters, I get confused but eh, hopefully I'll get some answers soon 🤣🤣

Chapter 6

I think I kind of realize what I find a bit strange about the updates. The chapters are cut weirdly. As much as I praised you for the question game in the last chapter, seeing it continue in this chapter was a little bit redundant. Like I already had that feeling of "this is cute" but having it continue without a single reason to give a break between chapters made it feel like it was just plopped into the word processor, cut for the word limit, and that's it. Now I understand tapas prefers short chapters. Heck I had to do the same as you! I ended up cutting some chapters to 2,3 even 4 parts! But I tried to edit the mini chapters in a way that they were all pieces of story in itself and could work without the context of another chapter. I will admit, there is one instance where I was not able to do this and it still bothers me that there is an awkward cut and I plan to edit that out when I get the chance... But yeah, I just feel like you could try and maybe give more meaning to the chapters cuts. Otherwise, you are giving your readers no other option but to continue to understand what is happening. This is fine, IF there is a good cliffhanger, but I'm not seeing that yet.

Chapter 7

Ooh we get some lore... It turns out that these sins are part of a family system? Interesting. I'm gonna have a lot of trouble differentiating these characters, especially as for some reason, I always have trouble remembering characters who's names are concepts like Wrath and Envy, but that is my issue entirely and most readers would probably be completely fine with it. Not much I can say about this chapter other than holy, these guys are insane...

Chapter 8

Okay okay, stuff is happening and we are finally connecting what happened in the beginning. I'm just still at a loss as to how these two story lines will collide? My best guess is that what's his face, forgot his name, but the boy Ira was so interested in was actually Archangel (did he wear a mask before? I think Wrath did so they couldn't really recognize each other)... That is my theory anyway, could be totally wrong. But as for the critique part of it, apart for some unnecessarily wordy parts, I'm actually starting to enjoy this somewhat. Kind of curious if I am right or wrong ^^ (oh but Cana in the previous chapter and this one is really annoying, not in a good way yet though)

Chapter 9
I enjoyed this chapter quite a lot actually! Seeing Ira struggle with the idea of forced marriage but also her remembering the guy, what's his face (sorry, I'm terribly horrible at remembering names 🤣). I can't get a firm grasp on Cana yet as so far she seems to be very moody. Pretty good chapter overall!

Chapter 10

As this is the last chapter I am reviewing, I have to say that it wasn't necessarily wowing me unfortunately. We got to meet a new character who doesn't seem important yet and we find out that Ira wants Tristan (I got his name from the chapter ) to be watched. Pretty fair chapter, but nothing too big happening.

The story overall... It started a shakily and I honestly wasn't sure what I was going to think, but I think it picked up later on. I think you need to work on pacing the individual chapters and making them feel like they are not just parts of a larger scene that you need to read all in one go, but make it so that the chapters alone feel like finished chunks of the story. The narration needs a little bit of fixing to definitely set it as omniscient narration. You would sometimes mix up thoughts with narration, or the narration would give wordings that were very bizarre for omniscient. Overall, the writing needs to be better grounded. Make up rules as you like, but stick to them throughout the entire story. Like for example, if you choose to write thoughts in bold, then stick to it. Because the formating was really all over the place. There were other things but I'm sure I have already mentioned those in between my chapter reviews.
But there were a lot of things that I liked! The story was actually interesting and already got me to speculate what could happen next. I am curious if my theory is correct or if I am completely wrong. The characters, though some are annoying, do actually feel like they add to the story in a meaningful way so far. As long as I forget the chapter 2 miss with so many characters in one scene, it works. Also, I still do ship those two lol!

I think that is all... Hopefully my words weren't too hurtful! Know that my intentions are only positive and I only mean to be helpful by giving honest feedback. If you are interested in getting more reviews from me, we can continue but no longer at a free cost. If you want, we can do a reading exchange from now on, or whenever you would like to. Just hit me up!